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Layshock v. Hermitage Seh. Dist., 496 F. Supp. 2d 587 (W.D. Pa. 2007). The First Amendment protects a student's right to create an Internet website about his principal as long as the time and effort that goes into creating the website takes place at home and the website does not interfere with the daily operation of the school. Justin Layshock, a seventeenyear-old senior at Hickory High School in the Hermitage School District, created a Myspace profile that made fun of his principal, Eric Trosch. School officials suspended the student for ten days, placed him in the Alternative Curriculum Education program, banned him from extracurricular activities, and prohibited him from participating in the school's graduation ceremony. The student's parents sued the school district for violation of the student's First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights. They alleged the school district violated the First Amendment in that the district did not have a right to punish Justin for making the webpage and further alleged that the school's policies were vague. The Fourteenth Amendment claim was based on the school's violation of the parents' right to choose how to educate and punish their child. The plaintiffs argued that the activity took place off campus and therefore the school had no authority over Justin. Both parties moved for summary judgment, but the Court ruled in favor of the student. First, because the speech occurred off campus, the court found that the website did not constitute school-related speech. The court found that Justin's speech did not cause a substantial disruption because it was off-campus speech and not in-school speech. Moreover, the disruptions that the school district did demonstrate were minimal and could not form the basis of authority over student's speech. In addition, the school district argued that student's speech should not be protected because it constituted either "fighting words" or defamation. The court found that the web profile did not fall into the category of "fighting words" because there was no confrontation in Cyberspace and no real threat that physical violence would be instigated. Further, the court held that even if the speech were slanderous, it would not give the school officials authority to punish a student because the school did not have authority to resolve tort actions. The court rejected the argument that the school's policies were vague and overbroad because each provision in question has "an appropriate geographical limitation." The court also rejected parents' Fourteenth Amendment claim that the school district violated their right to discipline their child because the parents' failed to introduce any evidence of how the school's conduct interfered with that right. (Blake Heath)